Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I thank Senators who contributed to the debate for their views and their support for the Bill. I want to clarify that the primary purpose of the Bill is to introduce mandatory breath testing of drivers by Garda at the lower blood alcohol concentration levels. The Garda will be required to test where death or injury has occurred as a result of a road collision or where he the member in question forms the opinion that the driver has consumed intoxicating liquor. The Bill does not amend in any way the lower drink driving limits. They were already passed in the 2010 Act and will be signed into law as a commencement order by me later in the year. The provisions in the Bill are proposed technical amendments to the existing legislation and they seek to strengthen the legislation in order to close any potential loopholes.

What Senator O'Sullivan said is correct, namely, that this Bill is a fine-tuning of the existing legislation, which was slightly defective but I will not labour that point. Notwithstanding the objection of a minority of Members of various parties, the legislation of 2010 was supported by the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party in both Houses. The Senator referred to the work of the previous Government in this area, with which I agree 100%. Fianna Fáil has got a lot of abuse, and rightly so, for its handling of the economy and other matters in recent years, but it did a very good job on road safety. It is important to acknowledge the contribution of the formers Ministers, Noel Dempsey and Martin Cullen, and their predecessors who did the things that made a difference. They include the setting up the RSA, the establishment of the Garda traffic corps and the introduction of speed cameras, which are now run by GoSafe and I am happy with the service it is providing. Other measures include the bringing in of the penalty points system, fixed fines and random breath testing, which resulted in a decrease in the number of fatalities and a change in behaviour. The improved condition of the roads also made a difference. Senator Barrett touched on that point.

Whatever we will do about tolling, it will be a long way down the road. It would totally defeat the purpose of having more tolls if that were to drive people off the roads because we would not get any further revenues from that measure. We are certainly conscious of that. No decisions have been made by the Government on that issue. We have not done any work in the past six months to progress it but every time the issue is mentioned the media go mad. Any time I have an unpopular decision to hide, I might decide to talk about tolling because it seems to be of great interest to the tabloids and some sections of the media.

The issue of rural isolation is a matter of real concern. Even though I am an urban Deputy I do not dismiss that issue at all. Large parts of my constituency are very rural which people may not realise but, hopefully, when they are out canvassing during the by-election campaign around Thornton, Coolquay, St. Margaret's and Rolestown they will get to experience some of it.

Notwithstanding rural isolation, rural road deaths are also a big issue. Even though 30% of the population live in Dublin, only 15% of road deaths occur in Dublin. Even though we cannot break down the figures to small areas, the incidence of road deaths tends to a bigger problem in rural areas than in urban areas. That is not only due to the lighting on roads, it is also due to drink driving. In my view, the solution to rural isolation is not to allow people to drink and drive and mow down their neighbours, rather it is initiatives such as having designated drivers and the provision of a courtesy bus, which many pubs, in fairness, are already operating. I know of a pub in Kells that provides a courtesy bus and it is extremely popular. I am sure some other pubs also provide one. Designated drivers are not that hard to find. I do not wish to be glib about this but it is possible to make friends with a teetotaller and while one has a pint the other person can have a Lucozade and he or she might even drive one home.

Another issue is taxis. Taximen tell me all the time, and perhaps they are right, that there are a lot of taxis operating and they cannot get business, yet people in rural areas tell me they cannot get a taxi. There must be some mismatch. Taximen complain all the time that they cannot get business and they have to queue up, yet people, particularly those in rural areas, complain that they cannot get a taxi home.

On the issue of rural transport, anything in that regard is subject to the comprehensive spending review. All Departments will have to take very deep cuts. There is no point in pretending that this budget will not be affected. It will be, but the project that the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, is working on, in conjunction with others, seeks to bring together rural transport, HSE transport and school transport into an integrated system and perhaps one that is much more efficient than the one we have now.

In terms of definitions, I was asked to define the term "available medical personnel", there is no definition of that as such in the legislation but it is understood to mean a doctor, and that is certainly the case now. Roadside tests are not carried out by doctors, they are carried out gardaí, but those are breath tests. Evidential breath tests are carried out in Garda stations and blood tests are carried out by doctors in a Garda station or in the hospital.

There is no specific offence of tailgating but it is considered to be dangerous driving or driving without due care. It was a big issue on the M50 due to people evading paying tolls, but now that the cameras face both ways it is no longer an issue. There is no longer any advantage in doing it because the number plate on the back of the car can be caught as well as the one on the front.

A defective vehicle is defined as a vehicle deemed to be defective by the Garda. It is not necessarily related to having done the national car test, NCT.

Senator Barrett referred to compliance with speed limits. I very much agree with his point. One third of fatal collisions involve alcohol but two thirds do not, and speed is obviously a significant factor in those. Enforcement is the key. In Australia, for example, there is good compliance with speed limits. People do not break the speed limit in the way they do here because they know they will get caught. That is the reason enforcement is so important. To make a different point as an aside, some speed limits in Ireland are inappropriate. Local authorities have a great deal more autonomy in setting speed limits than they had previously and they should use them to ensure speed limits are appropriate and not too low in certain cases.

With regard to technology, I am not familiar with any alertness technologies. I would be interested to know more about them. Some of the private bus companies use what is essentially a breathalyser on their buses, which means the driver cannot drive the bus without passing a breath test first. That is a positive move.

I will have to think about the ten day period for producing driving licences. There has to be some period of time although perhaps ten days is too long. There can be a legitimate reason that a person did not happen to have their licence with them at the time. I am sure I have forgotten to bring my wallet with me on occasions and that should not be an offence. Perhaps ten days is too much but we will give the matter some consideration.